UNCTAD II: Trade Not Aid

The 1960s was a period of intensely fought discussions as the NGO sector debated new approaches to advocacy, reform and the demands of the Third World.Footnote ¹⁷ Following the second United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) meeting in New Delhi in 1968, the phrase ‘trade not aid’ quickly gained popularity as a way of expressing the demand for member states, ‘to take full account in their trade and development policies, of the needs of the developing countries’.Footnote ¹⁸ New organisations emerged with a radical reform agenda that looked to build on the demands of UNCTAD and overturn the existing political and economic order. In the United Kingdom, three organisations were established in rapid succession supporting ‘Third World-ism’ and identifying with the politics of the new left: The Haslemere Group (1968), Action for World Development (1969)Footnote ¹⁹ and Third World First (1969).Footnote ²⁰ These organisations, although too small to bring about change on their own, provided new ideas and a dynamic network of young professionals that looked to shape the internal debates within more established NGOs and change government policy on aid and development.

The Haslemere Group was formed in January 1968 to discuss the social and economic crisis facing the ‘developing countries’ and the failure of rich industrialised counties to recognise the crisis and their responsibility for finding ways of changing it. Most of the participants worked for overseas aid organisations including: Oxfam, the Overseas Development Institute and Christian Aid; however, their involvement in the campaign was in an individual capacity rather than as organisational representatives. The Haslemere Group aimed to bring about ‘radical changes in the political and economic structures of the world so that the poor are helped not hindered.’Footnote ²¹ The Haslemere Declaration presented a wide ranging critique of the international policies and politics that had resulted in the economic domination of developing countries by the industrialised countries and allowed them to maintain control of trade in commodities such as textiles, coffee, cocoa and sugar.Footnote ²²

Echoing the words of Dr Raúl Prebisch, the Secretary-General of the UNCTAD, the Haslemere Declaration spoke of a revolution that was underway in the ‘Third World’ and represented a new political force. They declared the need to build links with this new movement, not out of charity, but in a common effort to change world society. While ‘the value and humanity’ of work done by overseas aid charities was recognised – they set out a challenge to move beyond merely the salving of consciences.Footnote ²³ There was clear frustration at the limited success of campaigners and limited action by government: ‘we cannot continue to be merely polite, respectable and ineffective lobbyists for “more and better aid” when we have lost all faith in the ability of our governments to respond realistically to the desperate human need of the poor world’.Footnote ²⁴ The new approach called for a political campaign, ‘to ensure that the voice of the exploited poor world is represented whenever and wherever Government spending are discussed’.Footnote ²⁵

In response to the challenges raised by the Haslemere Group, Christian Aid published a series of eleven booklets on overseas aid, tackling some of the big questions of the day: Why is aid needed? What can we do? What kind of aid? Should trade barriers fall? These booklets were an opportunity for Christian Aid to reflect in an official capacity the types of discussions that had been taking place within the Haslemere Group and communicate its position to supporters on key issues of trade, aid and development. Of particular interest in understanding Christian Aid's involvement in early fair trade campaigns are three booklets: What Can We Do?, The Role of Trade and The Commonwealth and the Common Market.

What Can We Do?

Christian Aid's second booklet in the series titled ‘What Can We Do?’ opened by arguing that ‘divisiveness is at the source of many of the problems behind the headlines’.Footnote ²⁶ Inequality between the world's rich and poor was growing, and despite the extent of global challenges, governments in industrialised countries seemed to be doing less about it – between 1961 and 1965 Western aid reportedly fell by 28 per cent.Footnote ²⁷ Christian Aid's analysis echoed many of the arguments made in the Haslemere Group's declaration.Footnote ²⁸ In particular, Christian Aid highlighted the tensions caused by aid conditionalities, writing that, ‘by 1980, if present trends continue the total amount of aid received by developing countries will be cancelled out by interest being paid back on past aid. We are giving with one hand and taking back with the other’.Footnote ²⁹

The booklet questioned how the UK government could be influenced to reallocate funds to better enable developing countries to stand on their own feet. Christian Aid argued that, ‘we have only one advantage – a moral one, and that we must use. We must seek to awaken the conscience of this country.’Footnote ³⁰ The next question was how to awaken the public conscience to the plight of the developing countries. There was a recognition that letter writing, lobbying and conferences were not enough, at least not on their own. As part of this discussion, the sit-ins and marches employed by the civil rights movement in the United States were acknowledged for their power to dramatise humanity's moral responsibility and confront inequality. But Christian Aid stopped short of proposing direct action in the United Kingdom, as, in their view, ‘it is not the task of Christian Aid as such to mount a campaign like CND. Our purpose is to offer an idea that may take root and form as the “lobby for justice” develops, and to provide opportunities for people to meet in groups large or small, in order to examine the facts and decide on their own action’.Footnote ³¹

Beyond a suggestion that individuals donated 1–2 per cent of personal income to voluntary agencies, Christian Aid avoided being too prescriptive about what was considered the right type of action. There was broad support for local campaigns, where members of World Poverty Action Groups were encouraged to engage local government, trade unions, chambers of commerce, schools, colleges, universities, local press and radio. It was hoped that from a local level, public concern would spread and that local and national institutions would be encouraged to face the issue of global poverty. Christian Aid offered support for local study groups to discuss complex issues about trade and inequality in the world.Footnote ³² Returning to the question of ‘what can we do?’, Christian Aid expressed a hope that ‘a growing number of people will accept their personal and public responsibility to raise these urgent questions in places where they live and in areas where they have influence in local and national life, in the ways in which they think will have most influence’.Footnote ³³

The Role of Trade

Christian Aid's booklet on ‘The Role of Trade’ opened with a brief overview of the economics of comparative advantage, but primarily the focus was on reviewing the progress made over the four years since the first UNCTAD and four months since the second conference.Footnote ³⁴ The picture presented was bleak when it came to the prospects for developing countries. Christian Aid's analysis highlighted a series of trade policies promoted by industrialised countries that would further distance the rich world from the poor world. These included the US quotas on sugar and cotton that had become more restrictive, the EEC's plan to export heavily subsidised sugar beet, the lack of new commodity agreements and the pressure applied to the international coffee agreement due to interventions by the United States.

The booklet outlined three areas where progress needed to be made: market access for both agricultural and manufactured products from poor countries to rich countries, the instability of commodity prices and, finally, the trend of falling world prices for commodities produced by developing countries. Christian Aid argued that, ‘no longer can farmers in the rich world be protected, if the price to be paid is the backwardness of 80% of the world’.Footnote ³⁵

The booklet ends with a quote from Julius Nyerere, President of Tanzania: ‘the objectives of the people of the underdeveloped countries can, I believe, be summed up in the trade union phraseology: fair pay and conditions for a fair day's work. . . . We welcome the comradeship of those who join us in this struggle; we are grateful for those who contribute to our strength while we fight; but whether alone or in company we must go forward to prosperity.’Footnote ³⁶

Commonwealth and the Common Market

The United Kingdom's responsibilities for the Commonwealth and the possible conflict arising with the accession to the European Economic Community (EEC) also came under scrutiny. Christian Aid's booklet on ‘Commonwealth and the Common Market’ stated that, ‘it is some gauge of the declining national interest in the developing countries that the concern for the future of the Commonwealth, if we went into the EEC, is much less apparent than it was when the Macmillan Government applied for membership in 1961. . . . We should ask ourselves seriously if going into the Common Market will be just another nail in the coffin of the Third World.’Footnote ³⁷ The position of India was given as an example of the possible impacts of Britain's entry to the EEC. It was estimated that the loss of Commonwealth preferences would cost £10 million a year immediately and the losses would likely increase.Footnote ³⁸

Christian Aid's analysis centred on a comparison of the impacts of the Commonwealth and the Common Market for developing countries. The controversial position of the eighteen developing countries that had been granted ‘associate status’ at the signing of the Treaty of Rome in 1957 was outlined in some detail.Footnote ³⁹ The group of ‘Eighteen’ were African nations – former colonies and dependencies of France, Belgium and Italy. Despite opposition from Germany and the Netherlands, the French proposal of preferential treatment for imports from associated overseas countries was accepted and as a result, half of the African land surface was associated with the EEC.Footnote ⁴⁰

Despite some amendments at the Yaoundé Convention in 1962, the main pillars of the Agreement remained. Christian Aid argued that the structure of the agreement presented some serious limitations for the economic prospects of developing countries. For instance although there were beneficial tariffs for commodities such as cocoa, other industries with potential for significant development, such as textiles, were exempted from the overall preference system, and agricultural products where there was potential competition with European farmers, such as sugar, were heavily restricted.Footnote ⁴¹ Christian Aid argued that the EEC preferential tariffs only benefitted one group of developing countries (the ‘Eighteen’) at the expense of another group of developing countries (the rest).Footnote ⁴²

The booklet concluded by considering how Commonwealth countries might respond if the United Kingdom joined the EEC – how many countries would refuse to follow? Reflecting on Macmillan's bid for entry in 1961, it was noted that ‘many African Countries announced their refusal to seek associate status on the charge that the EEC was a neo-colonialist structure’.Footnote ⁴³ However, by 1968 no dissenting voices had been raised ‘a sign that whatever the ideological arguments against associate status, the economic question is overriding’.Footnote ⁴⁴ Ultimately, Commonwealth countries in Africa had little option: if they rejected associate status they would be discriminated against in favour of former French, Belgian and Italian colonies in markets for tropical raw materials. With or without the United Kingdom the Common Market offered little of great significance to the developing countries: ‘all the signs are that it is a rich man's club. British entry would merely make the club even more exclusive.’Footnote ⁴⁵

The Church and Economic Justice

The 1960s has been characterised as ‘a period of decisive change in the religious history of the Western world’.Footnote ⁴⁶ On the one hand, the decline in national church attendance prompted some observers to claim that the modern Christian Church had been permanently sidelined.Footnote ⁴⁷ However, at a transnational level, Church agencies from the mid-1960s were increasingly prominent in coordinating global campaigns for social justice, international development and fair trade. Christian agencies moved from the sidelines to engage with global issues and challenges raised by the moment of ‘1968’.Footnote ⁴⁸ During Christmas of 1968 3,000 people went to Southwark Cathedral to show their support for Christian Aid's new policy statement adopted by the British Council of Churches in October 1968. The new statement brought the aims of the World Poverty Campaign into the mainstream of Christian Aid's work: ‘Christian Aid has a responsibility to participate strenuously in the wider community for economic justice in the world and is ready to work with other church and ecumenical agencies, and with all who share this most urgent concern of our time’.Footnote ⁴⁹

Writing in March 1968 Max Kohnstamm, Vice-President of the Action Committee for the United States of Europe,Footnote ⁵⁰ argued that the churches’ development thinking needed to respond to the serious difficulties jointly faced by the European Economic Community, the Bretton-Woods monetary system and the UN development structures.Footnote ⁵¹ Kohnstamm argued that, ‘structures can be conducive to, others destructive of neighbourly relations. As Christians, we must therefore study such structures and use our findings to guide our action’.Footnote ⁵² By the late 1960s the weakness of international structures meant that the situation of North-South relations – between the strong and the weak – had entered a new phase of charity, or enlightened self-interest. For Kohnstamm, this was a particularly unsatisfactory phase because it represented ‘charity without justice’.Footnote ⁵³ Kohnstamm argued that ethical thinking within Churches had focused almost exclusively on person-to-person relations and there was a need to move beyond one dimensional ideas to discover the ‘fitting act’. This required a rational analysis of the structures that govern economic and political action, rather than a moral judgement of people operating within that structure. Kohnstamm warned that, ‘unless the Churches are ready to undertake such analysis, and submit to its discipline their re-entry into world affairs could well make these affairs even more complicated’.Footnote ⁵⁴

Research by Jeffrey Klaiber provides an explanation of how the term ‘liberation theology’ was coined almost simultaneously in different places and in different contexts.Footnote ⁵⁵ In 1968 Gustavo Gutiérrez delivered a talk titled ‘Toward a Theology of Liberation’ to the newly formed progressive priests organisation, (Oficina Nacional de lnformación Social; ONIS) meeting in Chimbote, Peru.Footnote ⁵⁶ That same year, in US city of St. Louis, Richard Shaull delivered a paper entitled ‘A Theological Perspective on Human Liberation’ at the annual Catholic Inter-American Cooperation Program (CICOP).Footnote ⁵⁷ But it was Gutiérrez's book A Theology of Liberation published in 1971 that popularised the term and made the concept a topic of debate amongst Catholic and liberal Protestant intellectuals in both the ‘First’ and ‘Third World’.Footnote ⁵⁸

Gutiérrez argued that liberation theology was best understood not as a new theme for reflection but ‘a new way to do theology’.Footnote ⁵⁹ He described it as ‘a theology which opens itself – in the protest against trampled human dignity, in the struggle against the plunder of the vast majority of humankind, in liberating love, and in the building of a new society of justice and fraternity – to the gift of the kingdom of God’.Footnote ⁶⁰ At the 1969 Joint Committee on Society, Development and Peace (SODEPAX) conference in Cartigny, Switzerland, Gutiérrez gave a paper on the meaning of development.Footnote ⁶¹ He argued that charitable support given by wealthy nations for limited projects left the distribution of resources basically untouched. Gutiérrez challenged Christians in the rich world to make a genuine commitment to justice in the South.

In Brazil, Archbishop Dom Hélder Câmara called for a church that would unambiguously declare its solidarity with oppressed peoples and would accept the probable loss of state financial support. In 1964 Câmara established ‘The Church of the Poor’ and eventually this Church grew to number eighty-six bishops including sixteen Brazilians.Footnote ⁶² But Dom Hélder's efforts to utilise the church to advance social justice within Brazilian society did not go unchallenged. Any attempts to do more than provide charity were met with severe criticism, both from the state and conservatives within the church. Câmara stated, ‘when I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why they are poor, they call me a communist’.Footnote ⁶³ In Revolution through Peace (1971) Câmara contributed to the widening debate about ‘Trade not Aid’. He argued, ‘it is not aid that we need. . . . If the affluent countries, East and West, Europe and the United States, are willing to pay fair prices to developing countries for their natural resources, they can keep their aid and their relief plans.’Footnote ⁶⁴ This new theological understanding opened up the political and economic sphere of international trade and development to a religious and social critique that redefined ideas of economic justice. Increasingly these North–South links were envisaged in terms of solidarity and partnership, rather than charity.

In 1969 Dom Hélder Câmara travelled to the United Kingdom and delivered a lecture to the Haslemere Group. The title of the lecture was ‘Violence and Misery’.Footnote ⁶⁵ Dom Hélder explored what he called the ‘triple violence against the underdeveloped world’. He used Latin America as an example to consider ‘internal colonialism’ – the vast disparity in land ownership that resulted in 6 per cent of landowners owning 94 per cent of the land. He then addressed the issue of ‘violence from the developed world’ – including the international monetary and trade system, the myth of overseas aid and the exploitation of material resources. His third theme was ‘legally installed violence’ that sustains the established order. He argued that controlled by privileged groups, and supported by the United States, Latin America risked being crushed by its own governments. In response Dom Hélder highlighted the role of the church in the underdeveloped world, and in the developed countries called on groups like the Haslemere Group to form a united movement to open a debate about the values, priorities and structures of society. Dom Hélder ended his lecture by praising the work of the Haslemere Group saying, ‘even if you do not regard yourself as practising any particular religious faith, I assure you that you will be carrying out a profoundly Christian work!’.Footnote ⁶⁶

Repositioning Christian Aid's Identity

The moment of 1968 raised important questions about the identity of Christian Aid and its Christian foundations as it repositioned its role within emerging networks of development agencies. In this moment of political acceleration there was renewed attention on debates about the nature of charity and politics, and distinctions between famine relief and development. Previous studies have identified that from the late 1960s and early 1970s Christian Aid embraced a more political role, characterised as a ‘double approach’ that was both charitable and political.Footnote ⁶⁷ The following section explores how this change happened and how far this represented a new identity for Christian Aid's campaigns and ‘brand identity’.Footnote ⁶⁸

The process of identity formation can be viewed through Christian Aid's interaction with three key constituents – the UK Government, in particular the Charity Commission; competing agencies operating in the development sector, most notably Oxfam; and Christian Aid supporters, crucially churches and local congregations. Each interaction uncovers a different dimension of Christian Aid's identity and reveals how it adapted and evolved during this moment of acceleration.

Alan Brash, Director of Christian Aid, writing at the end of 1969 to Hugh Samson, longstanding public relations advisor, raised the challenges about the image of Christian Aid.Footnote ⁶⁹ Brash's letter opened as follows: ‘I remember very well that at the time when we started talking in September 1968 about the need to give a national and even political orientation to the work of Christian Aid, and to destroy its image purely as charity in the narrow sense, you were the one perhaps more than anyone else warned us that, while you absolutely agreed, there were dangers in this situation. Let me say immediately, I don't regret anything that has happened in the interval, but I have never forgotten your warning.’Footnote ⁷⁰ Brash was concerned about damaging Christian Aid's image amongst ‘the vast body of good church folk’.Footnote ⁷¹ Brash's experience of meeting with local groups was that they had a varied understanding of Christian Aid's ‘political dimension’ and that there was some confusion about the role of money-raising and the Christian foundations of their work. Brash did not want to withdraw Christian Aid's support from campaigning activity, but he believed there was a need to protect their ‘home-base’.

Hugh Samson replied that, ‘so long as Christian Aid simply adopted a political stance in the form of a policy statement no-one cared a hoot. . . . But once the policy is put into effect, that's a very different matter.’Footnote ⁷² Support for new networks with an openly political slant such as Action for World Development was an seen as an opportunity for Christian Aid to gain publicity at relatively low cost.Footnote ⁷³ However, while this activity represented an exciting new initiative it was also potentially dangerous. Samson referred to supporters’ letters that revealed opposition to political involvement and unease about where Christian Aid was heading. In particular, supporters had a genuine desire for Christian Aid to provide ‘the theological – as well as the economic – justifications’.Footnote ⁷⁴

Samson recognised the appearance of an imbalance was partly the result of media attention on political campaigning such as the Action for World Development ‘Sign-In’, but there was also a need to look at internal staffing issues. Samson believed that, ‘non-political material has gone unmet because of the heavy bias on politico-economic education’.Footnote ⁷⁵ Samson argued that the most important people in Christian Aid were not head office staff, or the heads of the constituent churches, but the 300,000 rank and file volunteers. ‘We cannot afford to leave them behind as we become more sophisticated in our understanding of world poverty and its causes. Local Christian Aid workers are nearer to the public and more representative of public opinion than we are.’Footnote ⁷⁶ Samson concluded, ‘if we are to carry them with us, our pace has to be rather slower than it has been’.Footnote ⁷⁷

Charity Commission and Government Regulation

In July 1963 the Charity Commission wrote to Inter-Church Aid raising potential concerns about the registration and accounting of the organisation.Footnote ⁷⁸ The impetus for this enquiry was a broader review of the principal participants in the Freedom From Hunger Campaign in order to establish the forms of accounting used for sums collected for overseas aid. The specific challenge raised in the letter from the Charity Commission related to charitable registration. Christopher Hill, Chief of the Charity Commission, wrote that, ‘although we have registered the British Council of Churches as a charity under section 4 of the Charities Act – and the department of Inter-Church Aid is a subsidiary charity – we are really very doubtful whether either of these bodies is properly constituted as such’.Footnote ⁷⁹ The initial correspondence was with Leslie Ellwood the Honorary Treasurer for Inter-Church Aid. Ellwood was able to offer some reassurance to senior colleagues at Inter-Church Aid by explaining that he had recently attended an ‘Old Boys Dinner’ with the Chief of the Charity Commission.Footnote ⁸⁰ This ‘insider status’ allowed Inter-Church Aid a degree of preferential access, but they were still required to comply in full with the commission's ruling.

The Charity Commission correspondence was enough to prompt Inter-Church Aid to undertake a review, and by April 1964 a new constitution had been drafted and a new name proposed: ‘The Christian Aid Department of the British Council of Churches’.Footnote ⁸¹ However, it would be a further four years until the final version of the constitution was agreed, and then registered the following year by the Charity Commission. During this period the status of NGOs working to ease poverty overseas came increasingly under the spotlight. Principles agreed between the Charity Commission and the Inland Revenue identified the advancement of religion and education, and the relief of poverty as charitable purposes in whatever part of the world they were carried out. However in the case of poverty the Inland Revenue stated that ‘charities must be satisfied that the poverty to be relieved actually exists in observable cases and is not merely inferred from statistics, and that the measures designed to relieved it, e.g. irrigation, will have a reasonably direct result’.Footnote ⁸² This question of ‘observable poverty’ would re-emerge when the Fairtrade Foundation applied to register as a charity in the early 1990s.Footnote ⁸³

Writing in December 1964, Norman Pooler, working for solicitors on behalf of the British Council of Churches reported on ‘a trying afternoon at the offices of the Charity Commission’.Footnote ⁸⁴ The meeting had covered Christian Aid's proposed new constitution. The Charity Commission challenged the proposed functions that did not clearly align with charitable objects of either the advancement of religion, or the relief of poverty. The functions that were questioned and considered ‘not at law charitable’ included: ‘stimulating a sense of Christian responsibility’, ‘promoting international friendship’ and ‘assisting the growth of ecumenical consciousness in members of Churches’.Footnote ⁸⁵ Pooler's frustration with this verdict was apparent: ‘I would have thought it possible to meet most of the Commissioners’ objections without producing a document totally unacceptable to the present non-existent Council, but of course so far as time is concerned we are at “square 1”’.Footnote ⁸⁶

Christian Aid's revised constitution was finally adopted by the British Council of Churches on 24 April 1968. The revised primary object was defined as ‘the furtherance of charitable purposes which relieve or combat malnutrition, hunger, disease, sickness or distress throughout the world’.Footnote ⁸⁷ The secondary object was ‘the furtherance of charitable purposes which advance or assist such other charitable work as may be carried on by or with the support or approval of the British Council of Churches’.Footnote ⁸⁸ The following year Christian Aid was successfully entered on the central register of Charities.Footnote ⁸⁹

Jack Bowman, Christian Aid's Regional Supervisor for the South West of England, opened a brief, but interesting, discussion in July 1969 when he questioned whether the constitution could be amended to include ‘campaigns to influence the government to increase aid to such an extent that the charitable purposes would no longer be necessary’.Footnote ⁹⁰ Bryan Dudbridge, Deputy Director of Christian Aid, made it clear that such an amendment to Christian Aid's Constitution was not feasible and would undermine their charitable status. Dudbridge argued that such a move ‘would cross the knife edge; I believe that if such an amendment were passed the Charity Commissioners would not be prepared to continue to include Christian Aid on the List of Charities unless it were taken out again’.Footnote ⁹¹ He explained that Christian Aid's work in ‘what is loosely called the political field’ was in fact ‘the advancement of education’.Footnote ⁹² Dudbridge believed that it was essential that these campaigns were considered as educational work. This broad understanding of ‘the advancement of education’ allowed Christian Aid to ‘go a very long way in bringing the facts before groups and persons concerned with the work of Christian Aid so that they can weigh them up and take such action as they think fit as citizens’.Footnote ⁹³

Oxfam and Competition in the Development Sector

Writing to Lesley Kirkley in August 1968, Alan Brash set out what he described as ‘a very serious proposal’ for joint working between Christian Aid and Oxfam.Footnote ⁹⁴ Brash proposed that the two organisations should work on a ‘joint statement of objectives or targets for the next five or ten years as apply to international relationships and political action’.Footnote ⁹⁵ Brash believed this should be ‘a brief statement of points, clear and economically defenceable (sic)’ but still ‘sufficiently radical’ so that they would demand a serious change in the national policies and intentions.Footnote ⁹⁶

This was not the first attempt to align the objectives of Christian Aid and Oxfam. Despite areas of potential collaboration around famine relief and longer-term development projects, there were tensions about overlapping campaigns that targeted potential supporters (and donors) particularly those that focused on local churches. Challenges surfaced around specific national campaigns, most notably Christian Aid Week, but also less structured fundraising such as local church initiatives at Christmas. Oxfam's perspective was that it engaged with the whole of the general public, and this meant all groups – including churches. Christian Aid saw this as a direct challenge to their role as the official agency and partner of the churches.

When Janet Lacey wrote to Oxfam in January 1957 to explain Christian Aid's plans for the new Annual Week, there was little indication that this might cause conflict between the two charities.Footnote ⁹⁷ However, by April 1959 Lacey was responding to letters from local Church Councils unhappy that churches in their district had been contacted directly by the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, without consultation with the council, to participate in house to house collections on behalf of refugees. Lacey replied that ‘the Oxford Committee is an excellent organisation, but it does not necessarily have a special concern for the Churches’.Footnote ⁹⁸ Lacey explained that they had been working with the Oxford Committee on the World Refugee Year Committee and ‘they have known for months the date of our Christian Aid Week’.Footnote ⁹⁹

Leslie Kirkley responded on behalf of the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, stating that he was sorry to learn that ‘there had been a few difficulties recently with regard to appeals in the London area’.Footnote ¹⁰⁰ However, Kirkley downplayed the incident, arguing that overlapping campaigns would occur from time to time and directed responsibility back to Christian Aid: ‘quite naturally, as your Christian Aid Week brings in more and more towns, our Organisers will have increasing difficulty in preparing a full programme for themselves’.Footnote ¹⁰¹

The Freedom From Hunger Campaign presented an opportunity for Oxfam and Christian Aid to work together and demonstrate their contribution to this UN-sponsored campaign. Writing to Leslie Kirkley in April 1962, Janet Lacey commented that, ‘in view of further competition it would help both of us if we could arrive at an understanding of what is your area and what is ours’.Footnote ¹⁰² Lacey raised the issue of an Oxfam advert placed in The Telegraph that outlined a fundraising campaign to provide tractors for developing countries. Christian Aid were also running similar campaigns at the time; however what struck Lacey was the direct call for church workers, which she described as ‘stupid competition’.Footnote ¹⁰³ She clarified this by explaining, ‘when I say stupid, of course I only mean it is stupid from the point of view of the missionary societies and their workers and the church people’.Footnote ¹⁰⁴ Despite these criticisms, Lacey ended, ‘I do feel that we have got to find some way of working together because I believe together, from a policy point of view we could really make the country hum’.Footnote ¹⁰⁵

Leslie Kirkley responded with a proposal to define the respective areas of concern and responsibility of Oxfam and Christian Aid, with the aim of giving ‘practical expression to our desire to collaborate and our respective constituencies actually see that we are doing so’.Footnote ¹⁰⁶ Although Kirkley recognised that both organisations were interested in short-term and long-term programmes, he suggested that it might be possible to more clearly attach priorities to their respective appeals. Kirkley suggested that ‘the public image of Oxfam is basically famine relief, emergency aid, it might be feasible for that side of both organisations programmes to be our responsibility, on the understanding that we include the World Council of Churches among our channels of distribution’.Footnote ¹⁰⁷ In return, Christian Aid appeals would emphasise ‘the long term programmes on the understanding that we tackled some projects jointly and give precedence to your project’.Footnote ¹⁰⁸ This level of coordination would potentially increase the total contributions to both charities.

In October 1963 Oxfam was preparing to celebrate its twenty-first anniversary. Oxfam chose this moment to write to all churches and acknowledge the broad support they had received from the Anglicans, the Free Churches and the Roman Catholic Church. ‘From the beginning, the committee has consistently appealed to all men of good will, whatever their religious attitude, and has aimed at giving help wherever the need is greatest . . . although in actual fact a very large proportion of its grants have been channelled through missionary societies working overseas’.Footnote ¹⁰⁹ The letter ended by asking churches and congregations to ‘remember this work with prayer and thanksgiving, as part of the international Freedom From Hunger Campaign’.Footnote ¹¹⁰ The response from Janet Lacey at Christian Aid was short and direct: ‘Oxfam is a nuisance and it clearly wants to make a take over bid’.Footnote ¹¹¹

The following year Janet Lacey wrote a short report on ‘Relationships between Oxfam and Christian Aid’ as a briefing note for a discussion with Leslie Kirkley. The document reveals the level of competition and challenges facing Christian Aid at the time. In 1964 there were about 450 local Councils of Churches affiliated to the British Council of Churches. Affiliated Church Councils were expected to cooperate with the various Departments of the BCC including Christian Aid. However, Lacey noted that ‘in the last two years more Churches have been supporting Oxfam instead of Christian Aid rather than both’.Footnote ¹¹² This raised financial pressures, but also challenged Christian Aid's role in ecumenical education – considered a major part of the department's work.Footnote ¹¹³ Lacey reflected that the main question was ‘what Oxfam and Christian Aid says to the local Church when raising money and how they say it in regard to mutual cooperation. . . . Until we can solve the problem of over-lapping in the churches I do not see that we can go very far with co-operative enterprises.’Footnote ¹¹⁴

Tensions re-emerged during Christian Aid Week of 1969. The BBC had broadcast a series of four programmes on world poverty featuring Christian Aid, Voluntary Service Overseas, Brothers to All Men and Oxfam. Following the programmes Bishop Sansbury, General Secretary of the British Council of Churches, wrote to ask for an explanation about why the BBC had allowed Christian Aid Week to be ‘exploited by Oxfam’.Footnote ¹¹⁵ Sansbury's complaint was that Reverend Nicholas Stacey, Deputy Director of Oxfam, had taken the opportunity to publicise his own agency, ‘which of course is not constitutionally related to the churches and totally irrelevant to Christian Aid Week’.Footnote ¹¹⁶ Penry Jones, Head of Religious Broadcasting at the BBC, showed little interest in becoming involved in a dispute between Christian Aid and Oxfam, replying ‘I regret that inadvertently we seem to have involved ourselves on this occasion in the rivalries of different organisations with the same object’.Footnote ¹¹⁷ Jones concluded that ‘it may be better in the future to concentrate on the object, that is, compassion for the hungry people in the world’.Footnote ¹¹⁸